An enormously moving documentary made all the more effective by co-directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s steadfast refusal to settle for easy sentiment in the face of difficult outcomes, “Daughters” has as much ugly-cry potential as any film in recent memory. But the most lasting power of this film about a unique father-daughter dance for D.C.-area Black girls whose fathers are in jail comes in a final act that wipes those tears away to examine the hurt they leave behind.
Like Garrett Bradley’s similarly lilting and delicate “Time” before it, “Daughters” conveys the destructive inhumanity of America’s prison system by pointing our attention toward its collateral victims: in this case, the children denied a meaningful relationship with their dads. “Daughters” doesn’t absolve the inmates of their role in that process, but it also doesn’t tell us what they’ve done to deserve their sentences.
Like Garrett Bradley’s similarly lilting and delicate “Time” before it, “Daughters” conveys the destructive inhumanity of America’s prison system by pointing our attention toward its collateral victims: in this case, the children denied a meaningful relationship with their dads. “Daughters” doesn’t absolve the inmates of their role in that process, but it also doesn’t tell us what they’ve done to deserve their sentences.
- 1/25/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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